


Solace My Game

by plume_bob



Category: Homeland
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, Post Season 3 Finale, drinking while pregnant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 20:43:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2039436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plume_bob/pseuds/plume_bob
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He finds out Brody's dead at 5AM on Sunday morning. Saul calls—Saul whose voice is hard; hard words chipped from a cold block—to tell him and Peter goes from half asleep to heart-pounding, eyes-straining-in-the-dark alertness before Saul's even finished his sentence.</p><p>“What about the—“</p><p>“Extraction plan? Cancelled. In favor of a sacrifice.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solace My Game

**Author's Note:**

> I watched The Star too many times. And then I watched the new season trailer(s) too many times. And then I dusted off this old fic that was never supposed to see the light of day and hopefully made it semi-consumable.

 

 

This is not what being _done_ looks like. Like this—him groping for his phone in the middle of the night, heart yanking hard in his chest.

He'd been ready to dust off his old Honda, hit the road and put Langley in his rear-view mirror for a long, long time.

He might've changed his mind.

Or maybe he's still _done_ but he's just waiting for the right moment to call it a night because things that sound important keep eating up his time, keep getting in the way.

Or maybe he's just a coward and he can't admit the reason he's still hanging around with this sickening sense of wakening readiness in his gut like a moth beating itself to dust in there.

Whichever option he's looking at, they all have this nasty inevitable habit of narrowing down to the same road.

He finds out Brody's dead at 5AM on Sunday morning. Saul calls—Saul whose voice is hard; hard words chipped from a cold block—to tell him and Peter goes from half asleep to heart-pounding, eyes-straining-in-the-dark alertness before Saul's even finished his sentence.

“What about the—“

“Extraction plan? Cancelled. In favor of a sacrifice _._ ”

“Okay,” is all Peter can say for five seconds. “Okay.”

Because _shit._ Brody's dead and he never thought he'd see the day. He thought Brody might outlive them all in fact, couldn't call it luck exactly but something akin to dodging bullets; he's still Peter's one that got away and that doesn't happen often.

It's his first thought, funnily enough. And it doesn't last long because his next thought is fast and blinding, stinging like a slap, “Carrie?”

“She's still in Tehran, there's a plane later today”

“To where?”

“Geneva.”

“You want me there?”

“I want you there. Someone's gotta meet her, I'm not gonna get away in time, she _needs—“_

“I'll be there, Saul.”

What Carrie needs, Saul doesn't get to say, but Peter suspects the logical conclusion to that statement is the word _someone_ and he's not sure he really wants to hear that. Peter can make a few logical leaps himself anyway—sleep, a shower, a good meal, safety, quiet; the same things he needs when he steps off a plane after a headfuck of a job. The other things, he's not so sure. Carrie's never exactly cried on his shoulder before and he's pretty sure vodka's off the table, despite the sheer stubborn resilience of her genetics.

He packs, fast and light, and thinks simply that she might need to be left the fuck alone, someone she trusts in a place where she can reach them if she needs to. At a safe distance.

It's what he'd need, after all. If he'd lost someone he loved.

 

*

 

He waits, back against a carved stone pillar, with a clear view of the arrivals _._

He folds his arms tight over his ribs to stamp down the urge to tap or fiddle, a nervous tic he's gotten pretty good at suppressing over the years but it's out in full force tonight.

She's still wearing her headscarf, is the thing he notices first. Her eyes are red, is the second. She looks at Peter like she's not sure who the fuck he is and he wonders when the last time she slept was, if she's reached the exhaustion critical mass yet and the ground keeps rising up to meet her. He knows what it's like, stumbling back into reality like this, firm context all skewed, scales tipping all over the place.

“Who sent you?” she asks, a little manically.

He's not surprised by the question, she disobeyed a direct order on Iranian soil. Carrie knows what Peter is. “Saul.” She slumps, shoulders sagging. “I would have come anyway,” he adds, because it's important she knows he isn't here on a mission; Carrie's not damage to be limited.

He takes the suitcase handle out of her slack hand.

“Where are you taking me?” she asks flatly, like she honestly doesn't care; sounds all wrong, even the words, like Carrie ever lets anyone make her the object of a sentence.

“Didn't have anywhere in mind, actually.”

“You run a great airport collection service.” She's dry, even now, and it settles him.

“Well, where do you wanna go?”

She says quickly, “Not home.”

“Okay.”

“I don't care, just not home.”

*

 

He stands out on the decking and watches the bats fly in arcs over Lake Geneva.

They swoop like a huge, trailing roller coaster and isn't that a neat visual summation of the past 24 hours.

There's too many stars in the sky, the night isn't dark enough to eat up the shapes; Peter hasn't been outside of the cities in a while and he's not used to it. Cramped mission rooms and all-day meetings and coffee at 3AM, four walls and grey ceiling tiles and living by some warped, Dali-esq clock.

It's more his style these days.

Out here it's fresh air and still water, night and day happen when the sun tells them to, and Peter itches for the kind of calm, solid surety he used to take for granted. A single-minded purpose; he knew his job, knew his place, felt confident in his decisions. Complicated just doesn't suit him.

At least being _done_ was a decision. Might not have been a particularly career defining one, but it was cut and dry, fairly self-explanatory.

He's existing in limbo, some damn purgatory he's wandered right into because he's dared to question the natural order. This is his punishment, he thinks, and doesn't laugh bitterly like he wants to because he's aware of every way there is to sic surveillance on a person and plenty of people already think he's mad.

A sound like a crash comes from Carrie's room ten feet down the terrace and Peter spares the stars a final, withering glance— _you're testing me, I get it_ —and uses the spare key because knocking is only gonna get him completely ignored.

It's hazy inside, silver moonlight fog streaking through the windows. Carrie's sat on the floor under the 'sill, a bottle of something swinging between her knees. The bedside lamp cord wound around her fist and the lamp in pieces on the floor near the nightstand.

She looks up at Peter and says, “I needed to bring it over _here._ ”

“Well, it almost worked.” Carrie shrugs and pulls a face. He thinks maybe she just wanted to break something. “You want the light on?”

“Nah. What's the point?”

“Well, light.”

“I overestimated my need for it.”

“Since I'm the only other person here—” Peter starts, walks into the room and steels himself. “I feel like I should give you the obligatory speech about putting down the bottle.”

Carrie laughs, it's not a pleasant sound. “Its dad got hanged from a crane less than twenty-four hours ago for murdering the head of the Revolutionary Guard.”

“So, what? You're trying to abort?”

“Little late for that.”

He honestly doesn't know what to do. Peter doesn't _handle_ _people_ , that's not his jurisdiction, that's Carrie's. What he wants to do is go to her, sit under the bars of streaming moonlight, just sit beside her, and what Peter _does_ do, is follow his gut.

He presses their shoulders together, brings up a knee and holds out a hand for the bottle. Smells like vodka when she hands it over, so it wasn't totally off the table then, in the end.

“It's an old wives' tale, anyway,” she says into the silence. “A hot bath and a bottle of liquor.”

“Sounds legit.”

“Better than a wire coat hanger.”

Peter drinks deep from the bottle, winces because it's more like turpentine than anything fit for human consumption. When he speaks his voice is stripped thin. “No, this might just do it, old wives tale or not. Fuck, where'd you get this shit?”

“I don't even know. Found it in the bottom of my suitcase.”

“Jesus, Carrie.”

“You judging me?” she asks, sarcastic or something, a drawling irony, and he drinks again.

“Do I ever?”

She turns her head and stares at his profile but he doesn't look, she's too close for that. “I don't know what you're thinking.”

“Told you, I'm an open book.”

He can see her eyes like marbles in his peripheral vision, the twist of her mouth. “Why'd you bring me to a lake?”

“Thought that'd be obvious.”

“That's a non-answer, let's me fill in the blanks. Ever considered going into politics?”

Peter tenses at that and no doubt Carrie feels it, sees it, did it on purpose, maybe all of the above.

“It's quiet out here, no one to bother you.”

“You've never lied to me before, don't start now,” she says, quick and hard.

“Don't be so sure.”

“I said you've never _lied_ , not full disclosure.”

“Isn't that the same thing?”

She snorts. “You know it's not, not in this job.”

Peter blows out a sigh and tips his head back, slumps with the wood cabin wall hard against his back. “Your family has a lake house.”

“I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you've been there.”

“Not inside it,” he offers lightly and drinks. Carrie shakes her head, he sees it out the corner of his eye, but she's not pissed, just—resigned. Resigned in that way he's scared she's gonna become now, terrified in fact. He wants, sudden and uncharacteristically reckless, to give her a reason to be angry. “I watched you and Brody.” He slants his eyes over and sees her mouth turn down. “Right after Abu Nazir.”

“And your verdict?” Her voice is sharp and kept almost in check, just enough that he has the satisfying knowledge she has to try. It's better, she's more alive like this, more a bright and breathing thing and maybe this is what he can give her.

“That he was no longer a threat.”

It's implicit in its meaning and she takes it for what it is, an admission. Carrie stands and doesn't realize the lamp chord's still wrapped around her fist, the half-smashed glass dragging over the floorboards with a mangled shriek that makes Peter wince. She tries to shake it loose and it'd be kinda funny if he wasn't 90% sure she was gonna pick it up and throw it at his head.

He jerks to his feet and grips her wrist before she can get shattered glass everywhere. “Hey.” He unwinds the wire gently but Carrie hardly seems to notice.

“So what the _fuck_ changed?” she asks, tears in her eyes but Peter can't tell if it's anger, frustration, grief—again, probably all of the above, she's got this way of feeling everything at once that Peter finds dangerously fascinating; not a day goes by when he's not learning something new about her. “Between then and now, proven innocent of every new charge against him.” She gestures it out with her hands and he's still holding her wrist, like trying to pin a butterfly. “When did Brody go from _no longer a threat_ to _better off fucking dead_!?”

And what the hell can he say to that?

“It was bigger this time.”

“Yeah, it was. And that just makes it all the more messed up.”

Her voice breaks completely. He feels her start to crumple and pre-empts it, quick fingers moving like he has any Goddamn clue what he's doing, gripping her shoulders and drawing her up to full height like some kind of tin soldier, and he realizes with some awkward self-reflection that he touches her far too much.

“Carrie.” She takes a shuddering breath and he puts a cringing, desperate hand around the side of her neck like he's fighting with it, somewhere between his rational brain and his worst instincts. “Carrie. He did good. Brody did good,” Peter tells her seriously, presses his fingers against the back of her neck and rubs his thumb in circles under her ear. The words sound pathetic but he doesn't mean them to, there's just no adequate way to express the sentiment, nothing that can neatly encompass what Brody did, what he _was_.

Doesn't matter, she gets it. Or maybe it's Peter she gets because he wouldn't say it if he didn't mean it, if it didn't mean _something._ Carrie nods but it doesn't stop the look on her face, like something breaking in slow motion. He can't bare to look at it but he's got no chance of looking away.

“Come on, it's hot as hell in here.”

He slips an arm around her—familiar—and pulls her towards the door, out onto the decking and under the canopy of stars. She pulls in deep breaths, leans over the wooden railings and swipes an arm across her face. It hits him, low and visceral, that bringing her outside might have been a bad idea; she's too lit-up, pale and stoic in the moonlight, a thousand fucking clichés, he can't take his eyes off her at the best of times but it's like he's riveted.

So he gulps back the last of the God-awful vodka and hurls the bottle over the railings, somewhere off into the trees. It feels good to do that one wild thing when his brain feels like it's baking.

His throat burns unpleasantly and he coughs it raw. “I drank hand sanitizer that tasted better than that.”

It takes her at least a minute, and he doesn't think she's going to say anything at all but he's wrong; Carrie pulls it together just like she always does. “Sounds like there's a story worth hearing there.”

He leans up against the rails, keeping a few inches of space between them. “Maybe I'll tell it to you one day.”

Carrie bows her head. “Last year I made a botched attempt at an overdose.”

_Fucking hell._

Talk about a smack in the mouth, he has literally nothing to say to that.

She turns and looks up at him through her hair. Whatever face he's pulling—shocked, he thinks, eyes too wide for someone this jaded—seems to amuse her. “Your turn,” she fires back, goading.

“I killed a kid in Caracas,” he blurts out, didn't even plan to but Carrie just has a way of knocking him off his guard, arresting him over and over. Out here in the easy air of a country that's not at war, it's a reckless thing; if he had a inch less self-control he could potentially drown himself in it and still be thirsty. “A—a child. Shot him by accident.” She nods slowly, perfectly neutral. “Did you really love him?” He doesn't add _or was it about being right;_ it sounds too cruel and he's not. He'd been willing to put his ass on the line for the answer to that.

“So much it scared the shit out of me. Why haven't you quit the CIA yet?”

Ding ding ding, it's the million dollar question. He's brought Carrie here, someplace genuinely safe and pressure-free, for her to figure out her shit and recuperate. Peter should've known, really, that it couldn't be that simple, that he'd end up confronted with his own shit. Or maybe that's what he's here for, some subconscious quest to make things simple again, get some kind of closure so he can finally shut the book.

He looks at her, looking up at him, and knows he isn't gonna get it.

“I guess,” he starts and swallows, a bad sign, showing his tells so obviously and she doesn't see it yet, probably, but she will. “I'm not as done as I thought I was.”

“Yeah, well, you're not exactly unique there, Quinn.”

He huffs a laugh, against all odds. “You make it sound like a cult.”

“We keep going back, don't we?”

“Are you? After what they've done? Saul's gone, Carrie. Lockhart had him clearing out his office while Brody was still breathing.” Peter winces; it just slipped out, pretty insensitive. “Sorry.”

She looks out over the water, still hunched low over the rails like she's physically wounded. Brody's toppled the first domino, he's the reason Carrie's put herself through Hell and kept on going. Peter's not gonna judge her if she can't find another reason to keep fighting. It'd be hypocritical at best because where does he stand if she can't?

“I'd feel better if I knew someone had my back,” she says eventually, and he wonders then if he's wearing uncomfortable truths all over his face, if he's not as good an actor as he thinks he is.

So he bows his head, the drained slump of his body heavy against the rough wood; propped up, he thinks vaguely. “You gotta promise me something.”

“If I can.”

He turns, chin against his shoulder where he can still kid himself that he's in the shadows. “That you'll care of yourself.”

“Might not come as a surprise to you, but I'm not great at that. It wouldn't be breaking a promise so much as an inevitable failure.”

“You act like the only thing you've got no control over is yourself, Carrie. Come on, it's bullshit.”

She full-on turns to him, turns _on_ him. “And what the fuck would you know?”

“Wait, are you getting mad because I think you're better than that?” he asks, just relieved to pass off some of the focus. And Carrie's voice sounds like her own again, it's taken him all of days to feel its absence. “I've seen what you can do even when you're out of your fucking mind.”

“God,” she groans. “It's like you love saying shit that's awkward.”

He stares down at the reeds drowning in the shallow bank of the lake and tells her softly, “I've always got your back.” She just—breathes. Watches him and breathes and he doesn't turn to her because her attention is too careful, a precision strike. “D'you, uhh. Want a hug or something?” he asks, and it's mostly sarcastic.

“I think I'll survive. Don't strain yourself or anything,” she deadpans and Peter presses his lips together, a smirk or thereabouts. Carrie leans back over the railing, closer this time, and nudges her shoulder against his. He does look, then, safe until she says, “You know I've got your back too, right?”

When it comes down to it, Peter knows why he does almost everything. Knows why he tried to drop to of college at twenty, knows why he joined the CIA, knows why he's here with Carrie right now. He can catalogue, in great detail, every fuck up he's ever made, down to telling his first girlfriend that the way she said _supposably_ made him want to put a loaded gun in his mouth.

But he doesn't know why he does this one thing, this one, tiny slip-up made wholly of thoughtless movement. A barely-there nothing that kicks his steady, reliable heart up. It's just a tip of his head, forehead touching against Carrie's, and he closes his eyes, feels her frown for all of a second. Then she sighs against his nose, leans a little heavier, and his body reacts with a shocking sensory overload that's frankly uncalled for, a heady cocktail of rushing blood and adrenaline.

It's absurd, how utterly, irreversibly fucked he feels.

“Okay,” he says, and then again, too revealing, “okay. I'm going to bed. You should think about it too.” He pulls back slowly, steps safely out of Carrie's space because he has one more thing to say and it's important. “And thank you.”

“For what?”

It's fucking ridiculous she even has to ask that, so he gives her his best smile. “For saving the world, Carrie.”

She rolls her eyes but gives him a tired one in return. “Fuck off, Quinn.”

He's fluent in her by now to know she's grateful.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
